Gone are the days of the great audition.


Only a short while back we could go to multiple audio rooms in a town just around the corner and listen to all the styles and brands of speakers you wanted. Now of course, only the bargain speakers are available for audition at that yellow sign store and unless you are very lucky the exact model you are looking for isn't reachable for an hour or two drive, if that. I'm certain from the desperation in some the posts in this very forum, that people have purchased things solely on word of mouth or even just specs and looks. Dark ages of getting what you want and yet so much more available. There is so much reviewing and so little listening going on. I live in the DC metro and wanted to look for some towers in the 2k range. The two places I went only had a couple of towers in that range and I'm just not doing the yellow sign place. What do you do?
jmacinnis

Showing 2 responses by paraneer

And very soon even the Yellow Sign store may be gone too. What do we then? At least a subsidiary company of theirs that goes by the name of a certain flower brings some very good brands to market for people to audition. I bought my Viennas from them after a lenghty and enjoyable audition.

This is why I am not quick to advise people to go out and listen to a speaker themselves rather than ask opinions about it in a forum. They simply can't. There are no venues in their area to do it. They must rely on forum opinion or published reviews.

Everytime each of us buys something off the internet vs a local B&M guy, we have only ourselves to blame. Everytime we bash the Yellow Sign company because of incompetent help, we put another nail in the coffin. Everytime we put the absolute cheapest price before value, we ultimately limit our choices. And since the number of participants aka potential buyers is very small, this will only hasten the total collapse of the HIFI hobby even more.

These ain't the glory days of the seventies! I like your comment about the Dark Ages of getting what you want when so much more is available. But where?
I agree 100% Rok2id that uber high end manufacturers do not want their products too readily available. In this MP3 era where the vast majority of consumers do not even care to purchase entry level Polks, there is no mass market anymore for HIFI. So some savvy high end manufacturers know there is more way profit to be made selling a few units at a very great premium rather than more units at a reduced margin in a shrinking market.